by Sarah Morgan
She reminded him of one of the Sirens from Greek mythology, the sound she made a dangerous enchantment luring enamoured sailors to their deaths.
But this time she wasn’t singing for anyone else.
She was singing for herself. In the dark, where he couldn’t be distracted by a vibrant sequined dress, red lips or towering stilettos. Here, in the dark loneliness of the empty recording studio, there was just the woman and the voice, and the voice was world class.
The rich, perfect sound lifted the tiny hairs on the back of his neck and sent sensation pouring through his body, rapidly followed by a stinging infusion of guilt as he realised how wrong he’d been about her.
He’d called her talentless.
Opportunistic.
Slowly confronting the magnitude of his error, Matteo listened to the words of the song—a soulful lament urging people not to judge from the outside.
Look at me, I’m not what you see …
The lyrics were uncomfortably apt and he stirred under the weight of remorse because, although it was true her image had projected something different, he was a man who prided himself on being able to see beneath the surface of every person and every situation. But with her he’d been blind. He’d seen the press coverage, the sequined dress and he’d judged, but he hadn’t listened.
The harmony and chord progression were skilled and unusual, but what really stunned him was the rare purity of her voice. She was insanely good, her talent so glaringly obvious that he, who had heard just about everything in his years listening to music, was speechless.
Had she sung like that at his brother’s engagement party?
He yanked his mind back, forcing himself to remember the moment she’d grabbed the microphone. What little he remembered was nothing like that. Her voice had been hard and a little forced. False. Desperate.
Look at me, I’m not what you see …
She could have been singing the song for him. If it hadn’t been for the fact she hadn’t realised he was in the room he would have thought she’d picked it especially to make her point because it was an honest reflection of his own attitude to her.
He didn’t recognise the song and although he couldn’t see her face he knew from the depth of emotion she poured into the sound that her cheeks would be wet with tears as she hit the last few bars and sang, ‘That’s not who I am …’
Silence followed.
Matteo was about to declare himself when she sensed him. Or maybe he made a noise. Either way, her head whipped round.
‘Hello? Is someone—?’ She must have made out his outline in the semi-darkness because she gave a soft gasp of fright. ‘What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.’
‘I could ask you the same question.’ He flicked on the light and saw her flinch away from the beam and wrap her arms around herself.
‘Switch that off!’
She was in her pyjamas. A soft shade of pink and covered in … frogs?
She looked impossibly young—far too young to have produced such a rich, perfect sound. If he hadn’t heard it himself, he wouldn’t have believed it.
For a moment they both stared at each other.
He noticed that even without the make-up her lashes were long and thick, providing a startling contrast to those spectacular blue eyes. She had a sweet face, he thought. Pretty, rather than beautiful.
‘Stop staring!’ Visibly self-conscious, she gave him a furious look and hunched her shoulders.
The air was thick with sexual tension and it exasperated him because right now he didn’t want to think about the intensity of the chemistry. He didn’t want to feel that because although he’d been wrong to call her talentless he hadn’t been wrong to call her an opportunist.
‘You often play the piano in your pyjamas?’
‘Obviously I wasn’t expecting you to be stalking me.’ Tense as a bow, she pushed her hair out of her eyes in an entirely feminine gesture that told him she would rather have walked on needles than let him see her without her make-up.
He could have told her that the make-up made no difference to the attraction. If anything, his struggle was all the greater for seeing her because he now had a disturbingly clear idea of how she’d look first thing in the morning emerging from sex-induced sleep.
Her cheeks pink, she stood abruptly, but he noticed that she carefully closed the lid of the piano, protecting the keys. ‘Go ahead, yell at me. I know I shouldn’t have come in here but I honestly wasn’t doing any harm and I didn’t think you’d even catch me. Are you having me followed or something?’
‘I was working. I saw the light go on.’
‘You were working at two in the morning?’ Without looking at him, she gathered up a stack of papers she’d piled on the piano stool next to her. ‘You need a different job. From where I’m sitting, yours sucks.’
‘It has its moments. Like five minutes ago when I heard that song. Who wrote it?’
Her spine was a rigid line. ‘Why do you care?’
‘Because it’s incredible. Because I haven’t heard it before. Because I want whoever wrote it to write something for me.’ Fascinated by the feminine curves outlined by the flimsy pyjamas, Matteo struggled valiantly to keep his mind on the music. ‘Do you have a contact number for him?’
‘You’re so sexist.’
‘Her then.’ Impatient for an answer and desperate to remove himself from this sexually charged atmosphere, Matteo retrieved his phone. ‘Name? Number?’
‘This songwriter doesn’t write songs for other people.’
‘They wrote that for you?’
‘You think I stole it?’ Her voice had a brittle edge to it. ‘Thanks.’
It was a physical effort not to haul her against him and kiss her again as he had on that first night. For some reason her nude lips were every bit as appealing as the glossy, strawberry-red version. He knew they’d be soft because he’d already kissed her. He knew she’d taste sweet, because he’d already tasted her.
And although part of him wanted to tell her that he thought her voice was sensational, he knew that offering up that degree of praise would shift the nature of their relationship. Experience told him that the only thing keeping them apart was the thin layer of animosity they’d managed to construct. A layer that was now torn and full of holes.
Matteo struggled to draw together the flimsy, ragged edges of the protection he’d spun. ‘I didn’t know you played the piano.’
‘Yes, well, I think we’ve already established that there are a lot of things you don’t know, including when to relax and have fun.’ She stuffed the papers into an oversize bag and dragged it onto her shoulder. As usual her feet were bare and this time she didn’t seem to have bothered even to carry her shoes.
Matteo breathed deeply, trying to find the balance between antagonising her further and crossing the barriers he’d erected. ‘I’ll overlook the fact that you broke into my recording studio if you give me the phone number of the songwriter.’
‘I didn’t break in. I walked in. You left the door unlocked.’ Chin in the air, she marched past him but he caught her arm, spinning her around to face him.
‘Maledizione, Izzy, who wrote the song?’
Finally she looked at him. Straight at him.
For a moment he thought he saw a sheen of tears glaze her eyes. Then she blinked.
‘I did. I wrote the song.’ And before he had time to react she twisted her arm from his grip and vanished out of the door.
Arrogant, judgemental, annoying—boiling with fury, Izzy sprinted back over the grass towards the palazzo, grateful for the dark. So much for lifting her mood by singing. Not only had a man she lusted after more than she’d ever lusted after a man before seen her looking her worst, she’d completely embarrassed herself.
The irony of it made her want to scream.
She’d planned every second of her performance at the engagement party in an attempt to gain his attention. She’d chosen her red sequin dress with care. She’d spent hours on her
make-up. And he’d finally listened when she was dressed in her pyjamas, barefaced and singing to herself in the dark. She’d spent her life on the lookout for opportunities, and when one had finally come she hadn’t been ready for it.
Furious with herself and not exactly understanding why, Izzy carried on running until she reached the side door of the palazzo. She sprinted up the elegant curving staircase to her turret bedroom and slammed the door shut.
It opened immediately and Matteo strode into the room without knocking.
Izzy turned like a cornered animal.
‘Get out of here.’
He ignored her and slammed the door shut just as she had. Only he was on the inside. And she was still in her pyjamas, her heart pounding.
‘You don’t want to come near me right now because frankly I am so angry with you I might hit you!’
He planted his legs firmly apart, the stance telling her that he wasn’t budging. ‘You wrote that song? Is that the truth?’
‘Do I get thrown in the dungeons if I punch you?’
He didn’t smile. ‘I can’t believe you wrote it.’
‘Because I’m a talentless loser?’ Feeling naked and exposed, Izzy wanted to grab a cardigan but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much he unsettled her. And truthfully she wasn’t sure a cardigan was going to solve the problem. The vulnerability she felt was beneath the surface.
‘Because that song is incredible,’ he said in a thickened tone. ‘And I did not at any point call you a loser.’
Izzy found it difficult to breathe.
He thought her song was incredible?
A strange buzzing feeling started in her head and suddenly she felt light-headed.
He thought her song was incredible.
The prince lifted an eyebrow. ‘Are you going to say something?’
Izzy opened her mouth and closed it again without speaking.
He gave a sardonic smile. ‘You go to extreme lengths to get me to hear you sing. If what you’re telling me is the truth then you elbowed your way onto the stage with the precise intention of gaining my attention. And now you have my attention, you are mute?’
Izzy’s mouth was dry. ‘You really think my song is incredible?’
‘Yes.’
The pounding turned to a rapid tattoo. As his words sank into her stunned brain, Izzy burst into tears.
Consternation flared in his eyes and he spread his hands in disbelief. ‘Why are you crying? I am complimenting you.’
‘That’s why I’m crying,’ Izzy sobbed, horrified by her loss of control but unable to stop it. ‘No one ever compliments me. I’m not used to it.’ Her breathing hiccoughed and she wiped her cheek on her shoulder. ‘Sorry. Sorry. It’s just … you don’t understand how hard I’ve worked to get people to take me seriously—’
‘I’m starting to get an idea.’ His eyes gleamed dark with a mixture of disbelief and incredulity. ‘You look a mess, Izzy Jackson.’
‘Thanks.’ She wiped her face with her palm. ‘After the fiasco of Singing Star I didn’t think I was going to get another chance. I sang badly on that stupid show, I know I did. And the song was rubbish. I should have refused to sing it but when you’ve waited ages for your big moment you don’t go and blow it. Chantelle always told me to grab opportunities with both hands so that’s sort of instinctive for me.’
He looked blank. ‘Why do you call your mother “Chantelle”?’
‘She prefers it.’ Izzy pulled a tissue from her bag and blew her nose hard. ‘“Mum” makes her feel old. She’s the one who drummed into me the need to seize opportunities. What she didn’t tell me was that sometimes something that looks like an opportunity isn’t.’ It was hard enough to admit it to herself, let alone to someone like him. ‘Singing Star was just a big mistake, masquerading as an opportunity. I got it wrong and I’m paying for it because I will always be “that girl who sang that awful song on that awful reality show.” That’s all anyone sees now.’
‘Not for much longer. So that song you were singing—The Me You Don’t See—you wrote that because of what happened with the show?’
‘No,’ Izzy said honestly, ‘I wrote it because of what happened with you.’
That got his attention. ‘Me?’
‘At the party you took one look at me in my sequined dress and dragged me away from the microphone. You didn’t even bother to listen.’
‘Because that was not the time or the place to sing.’
‘It was a party! It was the perfect time and place, but I was the wrong person because people took one look and judged.’
‘Wait a minute—you say you wrote that song because of me. When did you write that song?’
‘In the car on the way here.’
He was frowning. ‘You didn’t write anything while we were in the car.’
‘I wrote it in my head. I was humming. You yelled at me to stop.’
‘The humming was you writing the song? So how long did it take you to finish it?’
‘I don’t know.’ No one had ever asked her that before. No one had shown that much interest. ‘Fifteen minutes, I suppose? It just came in a rush. That’s how it happens.’
‘You’ve written other songs?’
‘Millions. Well, maybe not millions exactly. But at least a hundred.’
‘A hundred? You’ve written a hundred songs?’ Incredulous eyes scanned her as if a fact like that should somehow have been visible. ‘Have you ever played them to anyone?’
‘I’m always trying to play them to people. Their response is always “Shut up, Izzy.” So usually I just record them and store them on my computer—except when I occasionally try and take over the stage at royal engagement parties.’ It was his eyes that made him so spectacular to look at, she decided. Dark, moody and full of secrets.
‘And how long have you played the piano?’ Suddenly he was firing questions at her and she found it unsettling because no one had ever shown such a degree of interest in her before. She was usually the one pushing herself forward while everyone ignored her.
‘Since I was three. I played one at a friend’s house and loved it so much I refused to move until my parents promised to buy one. They thought the craze would last about a week, but I loved it. I had to be dragged away from the piano to go to school. When I grew up I used it for composition and to accompany myself when I sing.’ Izzy watched warily as he paced to the far side of her bedroom suite and stared into the darkness, his powerful shoulders a shield between her and the darkness. She couldn’t help but imagine him without the shirt.
He turned suddenly and she coloured guiltily, hoping that he couldn’t read her mind.
‘I owe you an apology.’ The words were dragged from him, but no matter how reluctantly expressed the apology was sweet. And unexpected. As unexpected as his lavish praise of her song.
Given that she didn’t want to feel the way she was feeling about him, she decided it would do no harm to reinforce his bad side.
‘Too right, you do. First you drag me from the stage and then you incarcerate me here and you’ve been generally mean—’
‘I’m not apologising for any of that.’ His tone was rough, the gleam in his eyes dark and dangerous. ‘I’m not apologising for dragging you off the stage because your behaviour at the engagement party was shocking. And if I’ve been mean it’s because you seem to have no concept of boundaries. You swim in my fountain and you make free use of my recording studio—’
‘Whoa!’ Izzy recoiled. ‘So what are you apologising for?’
‘For not recognising your talent sooner. I can’t understand why I didn’t notice it the night of the party.’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘You were really pushing your voice, maybe it distorted the vocal.’
‘Well, I was desperate for you to listen to me! But what you’re basically saying is that you seriously underestimated me.’
His jaw tensed. ‘Yes, I underestimated you.’
‘Seriously underestimated me?’
‘I try to resist the overuse of adverbs.’
She smiled sweetly, enjoying the moment. ‘In other words you find it tough to admit you’re wrong.’
He ignored that. ‘Have you ever worked with a record producer? Used a recording studio?’
‘Only when I did Singing Star and that was a disaster as everyone is always reminding me. Usually I do it myself. I saved up for some software. It’s got a midi sequencer and audio recording so sometimes I use that. I tried songwriting software but it kept generating melodies I thought were rubbish. Occasionally I go along to the local sixth form college—they have a basic recording studio I can use.’ Izzy was just eyeing the bathroom and wondering if she could surreptitiously disappear and put on some make-up when the prince took her hand and pulled her towards the door.
‘We have work to do.’
‘Now? It’s three in the morning, and—’ I’m dressed in my pyjamas, she thought, but the prince was already propelling her out of the door, displaying a level of energy lesser mortals could only envy. ‘Where are we going?’ She lowered her voice as she jogged alongside him. ‘I hope we don’t bump into anyone. This is too embarrassing.’
‘Everyone is asleep. And we’re going to my office. I want to play some tracks to you.’ He flicked on a light, strode over to his desk and hit a button on the computer. Music throbbed through the office. ‘I want your opinion.’ He sprawled in the chair and her eyes slid to his long, powerful legs.
This was the first time she’d seen him casually dressed but the soft shirt and black jeans simply added to his sex appeal.
Izzy struggled to keep her mind on the task in hand. ‘No one has ever asked my opinion on anything before.’
‘I’m asking for it now.’
She listened and pulled a face. ‘Truthfully? It’s awful.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s so depressing it makes me want to slit my own throat. I assume that’s not the effect you’re looking for.’
The tightening of his mouth suggested that it wasn’t. ‘I’m looking for emotional.’
‘Miserable and emotional are not the same thing.’ Suddenly worried that her pyjamas might be see-though under the lights, she sprang onto the soft couch in the corner of his office and tucked her legs under her. ‘If I’m supposed to give an opinion, you’d better start by telling me what this song is for?’